FF Explorers!

[Jeykama]

Thinking about it, but everyone I've talked to about it has basically christened it "Baby's First Monster Hunter" and urged me to stay away from it. I might pick it up if red mage is a selectable job, but only when it's on sale.

Haven't unlocked all the jobs yet but you can basically build your own red mage using the cross-class system on a Freelancer. Unfortunately the skill weight system means you can only equip very basic spells unless you're ok with a smaller ability kit, but you could do it and be functional. With mutations even the most basic spells can be pretty powerful with their short CDs.

After playing it for like a dozen hours, it's still baby's first Monster Hunter but it's still pretty decent and the customization of your characters' abilities is very very high. Not as many "bosses" as I'd hoped though.

And for the one asking about basic gameplay, you get up to 8 abilities you can customize (L+ABXY and R+ABXY) and early on gain the ability to further customize the abilities with stuff like extra fire damage, extra ice damage, regen when you cast cure etc. The game has a lock on feature but if you're aiming for specific body parts (very few monsters have it) you might have to fire without it like MH.

[Mimilu]

Haven't unlocked all the jobs yet but you can basically build your own red mage using the cross-class system on a Freelancer. Unfortunately the skill weight system means you can only equip very basic spells unless you're ok with a smaller ability kit, but you could do it and be functional. With mutations even the most basic spells can be pretty powerful with their short CDs.

You unlock Red Mage by buying Curaga, Firaga, and Quaga.
You can unlock those spells after unlocking 4 star quests and learning the spells before them.
I hear staves are better for Red Mages because of their special skill, Chaincast, makes lowers your cast time and swords don't boost magic damage. :B

[Jeykama]

You unlock Red Mage by buying Curaga, Firaga, and Quaga.
You can unlock those spells after unlocking 4 star quests and learning the spells before them.
I hear staves are better for Red Mages because of their special skill, Chaincast, makes lowers your cast time and swords don't boost magic damage. :B

I suppose it depends. Blue Mages can equip both daggers and staves. Some monsters have a huge weakness to a specific weapon type so weapon skills might help out there.
Good to hear rdm makes it, I hadn't really looked into the game until a week ago.

[Komoritane]

I bought FF Explorers a while ago for Japanese 3DS, but I can't read kanji so I got lost in the extensive customization system. Right out the gate you get a wide variety of ability options, so if that appeals to you then this is definitely a good game to check out. Reminds me a bit of Lord of Arcana type gameplay for the general quests. If you're looking for a portable RPG when you can't play ffxiv, then this is a really good option.